Heyyy!

Heyyy! draws from Zaw Zaw’s memories of growing up in Yankin, Yangon — a neighbourhood remembered through its streets, buildings, people, and the rhythms of everyday life. Among those memories is a familiar experience for generations of Yangon residents: the sudden return of electricity after a power cut. When the lights came back on, a collective shout of “Heyyy!” would often rise from homes and streets — a spontaneous expression of relief and celebration. Created during ARTICO RESIDENCY 2026, the work takes Zaw Zaw back to the Yankin of his earlier life. Painted from memory rather than as a literal representation of the neighbourhood today, the cityscape becomes a kind of personal rewind — fragments of architecture, atmosphere and lived experience reconstructed through paint. Yet the memory is not entirely in the past. Power cuts remain part of everyday life in Yangon, giving the familiar cry of Heyyy! a resonance that moves between then and now.

Zaw Zaw

Zaw Zaw is a Myanmar artist born in Yangon in 1969. He studied painting at the evening classes of the Yangon School of Fine Arts in 1986 and began exhibiting in group shows in 1997. Known for exploring new techniques and different mediums, his works often respond to social, political, environmental, and contemporary issues. His painting Ayeyarwaddy, dedicated to the victims of Cyclone Nargis, won the Grand Prize at the Tun Foundation’s Best Paintings of the Year in 2009.

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